


Goodbye

by InsubstantialScribblings



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Day 2 Turn Up The Volume, F/M, Hayffie, Hayffie Summer Week, Third Quarter Quell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 13:16:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20136055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsubstantialScribblings/pseuds/InsubstantialScribblings
Summary: The Third Quarter Quell is full of secrets and lies, but Effie's not sure she can handle the truth...





	Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the song “Goodbye” by German musician Apparat featuring Soap&Skin and of course [disclaimer] the quoted lyrics do not belong to me in any way. It’s really atmospheric and I’d recommend listening to it first if you’re not familiar with it. There is some discrepancy over some of the lyrics depending on where you look so I’ve gone with what I can hear most clearly.

** **

** GOODBYE **

** **

_Please put me to bed_

_And turn down the light_

She hadn’t thought he’d come to her tonight.

There’s a strange turbulence all around and it’s not just because the Games will reach their conclusion tonight. There’s something else in the air, something unprecedented, something dangerous. It’s so strong she can almost taste it at the back of her throat, threatening to choke her.

The penthouse is empty and still, yet she imagines she can hear the intangible something jangling discordantly. It’s like small shards of glass hitting against each other, a nightmarish set of wind chimes. The sound harmonizes with the thud of her heart in her chest, filling her ears from the inside, thumping with the muffled beat of a funeral drum.

The tension that’s been building since the Quell began – if she’s honest with herself, since long before it was even announced – has grown into a thick, dark, stifling fog and she hadn’t been sure he’d find his way to her through it.

But he has. He’s crept in with a stealth worthy of Katniss and he’s in front of her now, standing by her bed.

She can’t read his expression. It’s not one she’s seen him wear before; she has no point of reference. She thinks her silent staring unnerves him because he reaches for the lamp, dims it until they’re just outlines.

_Fold out your hands_

_Give me a sign_

He doesn’t try to touch her. He’s waiting for her to make the first move, but she’s rooted to the spot. Perhaps they will just stand here for all eternity. Whatever is about to happen simply won’t. Perhaps if they both hold their breath, remain so completely still, the Games will freeze too and leave Katniss and Peeta together on that beach forever.

It seems he can’t bear the stillness any longer and he holds out his hands to her, palms facing up. It’s an open invitation to either take him or refuse him. The gesture tells her he wants it to be solely her choice.

She’s never been good at turning him down, despite her reputation for strength of will, and she reaches out, placing her palms on top of his.

He strokes the length of both her arms, from wrist to shoulder and back again. He’s looking at her intently and he opens his mouth as though to speak, yet he doesn’t.

_Hold down your lies_

He’s trying to tell her. He’s trying to tell her that same thing he’s been wrestling with since the reaping. She’s lost count of the number of times he’s built up to it and then backed out. It’s something dark, she knows instinctively it is, it’s the dangerous something he’s involved in that rattles constantly beside her no matter what she’s doing, the thing that has spirited Cinna away without trace.

She could make him tell her. He doesn’t think she can, but she knows she could. She’s known him too long, too well, too intimately. She _could_ make him tell her. She won’t though. She’s come close, this past week. She’s opened her mouth to ask so many times, but the words stick in her throat, a huge and tight knotted bundle that gets bigger every time it slides back down inside her, burying itself deeper. She doesn’t want him to say it. Walls here have ears. And besides, she prefers the lies. She knows the truth is something fearful, something sharp and painful that will cut her.

She stops his mouth with a kiss. He responds immediately and with a passion so raw it’s intoxicating. She’s suffocating, but she wants it still. One hand travels to her waist, the other stretches across her back. His hold has always made her feel secure, it’s been like a safety net all these years, but though his arms are the same, tonight the sensation is different.

If she opens her eyes, she knows she will see the tattered mesh, sliced open by some cruel Capitol blade. She’ll be dangling hopelessly, kicking out to reach solid ground but finding only thin air, and she’ll watch herself plummeting down, down, down.

She doesn’t want to see it, doesn’t want him to confirm it, so she keeps her eyes shut, deepens the kiss, tries to wash her mind blank.

_Lay down next to me_

_Don’t listen when I scream_

She doesn’t stop kissing him. Not even as they remove each other’s clothes, not once they’re side by side on her bed, fingers tracing the contours of each other’s body. She’s afraid that, if she takes her mouth away from his, she’ll no longer be able to block the words she doesn’t want to hear. She’s let him lie to her for weeks, or rather she’s let him keep the truth from her, which amounts to the same thing. He’s kept quiet for a reason – she’s never known Haymitch do anything without good reason - so he mustn’t spill out his secrets now. She doesn’t think she’s strong enough to face them anyway.

Their lips don’t part until he enters her. He looks into her eyes and, as he moves inside her, there’s a new intensity to the act, a different emotion behind it. It’s no time to talk. The adrenalin that’s been coursing through her veins all evening makes it easier than ever for him to work her up the way only he can and she can feel herself begin to lose control. Still she tries to keep up the silence and she muffles her moans in his shoulder as she gets closer to the edge. He’s quiet, save for the occasional soft grunt that he tries to swallow down.

As she reaches her climax, she can’t keep it in any longer. With her release comes a scream, veritably torn from her throat, and it’s not just a scream of pleasure, it’s despair as well, and anger. At the injustice of their situation, at the way they were born, at everything that stands in their way. She hopes he isn’t listening even though he will hear; hopes he won’t understand all that the scream contains. It won’t help him now to know how she feels.

_Bury your doubts_

_And fall asleep_

She nearly caves in when he holds her afterwards. She’s always felt more for him than he does for her, that’s just the way it is and she’s always accepted it. She’s never held it against him. How could she, when she herself tried for so long not to love him either, denied it even to herself for years after it became true? Still, she’s always known he didn’t love her back. Cared for her after a time, respected her eventually, but never loved her. Until this past year. Now she isn’t sure anymore. There have been signs, small things. Since the Victory Tour it’s not been such a rare occurrence for him to stay with her, for her to spend her hours of sleep in his arms, but tonight he embraces her with a new ferocity and she knows he’s trying to commit this to memory – the weight of her body pressed against him, the sensation of her skin on his.

“Effie?” he whispers uncertainly into the darkness.

She mustn’t let him falter. Whatever he has planned will take him from her, and it’s risky, but he has to follow it through. She doesn’t know the details and she doesn’t need to or want to, but she _does_ know that whatever is about to play out has been designed to save the children, to hand them back the life the Capitol is even now trying so very hard to take from them. He is their only hope and she can’t risk him weakening because of her, no matter what it will cost her. The world needs those two young innocent souls to stay in it much more than it needs someone like her.

She twists in his arms and presses a soft kiss to his lips. “Shh. Sleep now,” she commands him, and eventually he does, though it’s not the sleep of the satisfied, it’s troubled and jerky, and she strokes his back to soothe him.

_Find out I was just a bad dream_

He’s found a way out, she’s sure of it. A way to somehow reach the children and escape to somewhere unknown, somewhere untouchable - into the unmapped wilds of Panem perhaps or somewhere further, to whatever else exists out there. People have done it before; she’s heard the rumours her whole life. _They_ could make it, the three of them, her victors. They’re born survivors, they’re not like her. The Games, the Capitol, the suffering they’ve endured – perhaps in time it will all fade away into some sort of distant nightmare, the stuff of fables and fairy tales. She hopes so. She hopes she’ll fade from his mind once he’s free. He’ll never fade from hers, but that’s all right. She doesn’t want him to.

_Let the bed sheet_

_Soak up my tears_

_And watch the only way out disappear_

She waits until he’s properly unconscious before she gives in to her emotions. If he sees her cry, he might drop the pretence and that can’t happen. So she cries hot, silent tears into the pillow and the bedclothes. Some spill onto his skin and dry there and it makes her oddly happy. Wherever he’s going, he’ll carry something of her with him, at least for a little while.

She has doubts though, lying there in his arms. Of course she does, she’s only human. She can’t pretend she isn’t envious. She hates the system as much as he does and it’s thanks to him that she feels that way. He was the one to open her eyes. He’s going to escape it or die trying and a big part of her wishes she could too. She wouldn’t mind dying if she was with him, she thinks, but it isn’t an option. This is all for the children and she can’t jeopardise their chance of safety for her own selfish ends.

_Don’t tell me why_

_Kiss me goodbye_

When he wakes again, she knows he’s leaving. It’s still hours until the victors will meet at the lightning tree, but she doesn’t question why he has to go now. She watches him dress and he watches her watching him and she can see his mind is in turmoil, she can see he’s trying to weigh up what to do for the best.

“There’s something you need to know,” he says eventually, mind apparently made up.

She shakes her head. “Don’t tell me. Just kiss me goodbye,” she whispers and those are the hardest words she’s ever had to say.

He hesitates, but then he does as she asks. It’s a beautiful kiss despite the sadness and the tension and she knows she’ll remember it to her dying day.

_For neither ever, nor never_

_Goodbye_

“Bye, Sweetheart” he tells her in hushed tones as his calloused fingers caress her bare shoulder for perhaps the last time.

She knows this has to happen. She knows they have to part ways. But she can’t believe this is it forever. That she’ll never feel his touch again. She can’t. To believe that will push her under. And perhaps she can still be of some use to them, after it’s happened. Perhaps there is evidence to be destroyed, red herrings to be thrown into the inevitable investigation, and she must stay strong enough to do whatever she can.

She doesn’t say goodbye. She can’t bring herself to. Her goodbye is in her eyes, in the look she gives him as he prepares to leave, and she hopes he can understand all she’s trying to say without words.

_Neither ever, nor never_

_Goodbye_

She’s never believed in thunderbolt moments. She likes to read about them in those romantic novels she’s fond of, but she’s never believed in them.

She does now.

The breath is knocked from her lungs when she sees the image of her own thoughts mirrored back at her in his serious grey eyes. Her heart threatens to leap from her chest. The room is spinning and her fingertips are tingling as though there’s something electric passing through her. She can feel the resolve she’s fought so hard to protect all night begin to flake and crumble and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. She can’t speak, but she strikes a silent deal with herself. If he turns around when he reaches the door, she’ll go after him, she promises herself, and hang the consequences.

_Neither ever, nor never_

_Goodbye_

_Goodbye._

He never looks back.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know your thoughts!


End file.
